This week, we’re staying quite close to Truro, so the logical choice for eating out (according to Trip Advisor) is Hooked!. Not surprisingly, Hooked! specialises in fish.
The restaurant occupies a rather unprepossessing building on Tabernacle Street, but whilst the outside and the immediate surroundings are not particularly attractive, the inside is warm, friendly and comfortable, with the decor picking up the ‘fish theme’ of the menu.
Our party ate off the main and vegetarian menus. Both were equally good. The courgette tempura and vegetarian Goan curry deserve special mentions, as being first rate.
Only one person had a dessert: the Hooked! Cream Tea. This proved to be a really inventive and well executed dish, which included a creme brûlée and a jelly sandwich. Needless to say, three spoons were required for this one!
If you haven’t been, try it. If you have, you’ll be going back.
Cornwall, when the sun’s out and the crowds are elsewhere, is truly hard to beat. If you’re standing on the beach at the National Trust’s beautiful Glendurgan property, with an ice cream in your hand, who needs the Caribbean?
This week, the Family Unit are finally on holiday. And we consider ourselves to be very lucky. Finding any holiday accommodation in Cornwall in August, is always difficult, but this year it has been an expensive, near impossibility.
Amazingly, we’ve been able to book one of the lovely eco-lodges on the Killiow estate, near Truro. The setting is idyllic. Surrounded by trees, it is a haven of peace and bird song. A complete contrast to the over crowded hustle bustle of Falmouth’s beaches, which must have had more people per square metre packed on to the sand than the Spanish ‘Costas’, yesterday.
Fortunately, the Gylly Beach Cafe cooked up a rocking good breakfast, served outside on its terrace, so we could look at the sea, but avoid the mayhem. Today, we’ll be heading to the lovely Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Adam Peaty is more than just the poster boy of British Swimming.
He, like the other members of Team GB, exhibits and talks about qualities and behaviours that don’t get a lot of airtime in these unusual times: wanting to do your best, supporting your team, pride in competing for your country, belief that you can achieve something amazing.
Our athletes come from many and varied walks of life and have moving stories to tell about self sacrifice, commitment and striving for a goal. All have the power to be incredible, positive role models for all ages.
Some of them are very young, some have received little funding and have soldiered on with little more than a dream to keep them going. Many have been impacted by COVID or overcome injuries and other setbacks. Those not fortunate to win medals, have picked themselves up and talked with determination about the future.
No complaints. No self pity. Just belief in achieving more.
The entire household has been struck down with a severe bout of lethargy and general, can’t be arsed-ness. A week’s camping ‘holiday’ in torrential rain has left the teenagers traumatised and reluctant to get out of bed. Those of us who did not have to endure the camping horror, have stayed up too late and still have to face the pile of filthy (i.e. wrecked) clothes, tent, equipment etc. that has been returned from Cornwall.
This all seems to fit with the general history of 11 July, which appears to be the anniversary of a rather uninspiring set of events, the best of which appears to be the birth of Robert the Bruce (1274), the opening of Waterloo station (1848) and the publication of A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens, 1859).
Hopefully, we’ll be able to summon up the energy to see if the nation will be adding football defeat or glory to this list, tonight.
Here’s hoping we break the curse of 11 July and make it a sporting night to remember.
What happens when talent, opportunity and stimulants collide
Every time I think about Hunter S. Thompson, an unbidden mental picture of The History Man’s infernal Howard Kirk hoves into view, probably because Thompson, like Kirk, is inextricably linked in the general consciousness with the so called ‘counter culture’ of the late sixties. But there the similarity ends. Kirk is a fictional fake and Thompson is the real deal; Complex, talented, mischievous, flawed.
Genius.
The political and cultural scene in America around this time is fascinating and there are a lot of books out there that cover this period.
Thompson’s gonzo journalistic masterpiece,Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 is a great place to start.
The book charts the rise and fall of Democratic Senator George McGovern in the run up to the November 1972 US Presidential election. McGovern’s opponent is ‘Tricky Dicky’ the incumbent President, Richard Nixon.
Thompson’s immersion in the McGovern campaign feels total and his writing reveals a lot about his modus operandi. He’s the headline act in the book as much as any of the other key players. His forthright views and thoughts are given the same prominence as those of his subjects, reflecting his opinions on objectivity in journalism.
Is everything in it entirely true? Unlikely.
Do I believe Thompson’s assertions about Ed Muskie and Ibogaine? Possibly. But this is not a history text. It’s a happening.
Reading the book is like drunkenly perusing The Economist, whilst racing a Porsche. An adrenaline high with an uncertain ending.
Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1972, will be next on my reading list, but I greatly fear that the Pulitzer Prize winner’s efforts may not be such a white knuckle ride.
Another, fine mess. Stan and Ollie get busy with the washing up.
If ever you’re feeling under the weather and want a quick pick me up, get on to YouTube and find a copy of Laurel and Harry’s Helpmates.
Shot in 1932, when the phenomenally successful duo were based at Hal Roach’s studio, Helpmates tells a simple story in its short 20 minute run time, but Stan and Ollie turn this into pure, comedy gold.
The plot: Ollie’s feisty wife has gone to stay with her mother and while the cat’s away …the mice get busy on the phone. Ollie throws a wild party, his home gets trashed and he loses all his money in a poker game. Shortly after he wakes up on ‘the morning after the night before’, a telegram arrives announcing his wife’s imminent return signalling the start of a massive, under pressure, clean up operation. And the fun.
Stan and Ollie milk the situation for all its worth, with perfectly timed knock about sight gags, inviting the audience to sympathise with them by ‘looks through the fourth wall’. A running series of disasters reduces Ollie’s wardrobe to just a fancy dress costume and the film ends with Ollie, a ‘sadder, wiser and dizzier man’, sitting in the burnt out shell of his home, in the rain, complete with a black eye.
This film delivers the goods and you’ll be laughing from the moment Ollie’s gives himself a telling off, to the end credits. Not bad for a film that’s 89 years old.
UNCLE VANYA by Chekhov ;
Written by Anton Chekhov ;
Directed by Ian Rickson ;
Designed by Rae Smith ;
Lighting by Bruno Poet ;
at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, UK ;
December 19th 2019 ;
Credit: Johan Persson /
Back at the start of 2020, I tried to buy tickets to see a production of Uncle Vanya at the Harold Pinter theatre in London. The dream combination of Chekhov and a stellar cast was just too good to be true.
Not surprisingly, lots of other people thought the same. So, no tickets.
Then COVID struck, the theatres closed and the cast were sent home.
Fortunately, someone had the bright idea of re-assembling the company (with one change) and filming the play. This must have felt like a strange dress rehearsal for the actors, but for Chekhov lovers, like me, ironically stuck out in the sticks, it has been a fabulous Christmas treat, courtesy of BBC4.
To make sure I got the most out of it, I read the play again, before I watched it.
The Play
Like all Chekhov plays, nothing seems to happen and people bumble about in a seemingly unfocused way, then suddenly there is a crisis event which sends things off in a different direction.
In spite of the play’s title, the central character, for me, is actually ‘the Professor’, Aleksandr Serebryakov and the impact of his unfeeling, and blinkered selfishness, which begins more than twenty years previously:
In marrying his first wife (Vera Petrovna), the family are forced to borrow to buy the estate which forms part of her dowry.
Vera’s brother, Vanya, signs away his inheritance to benefit this arrangement for his sister. After her death, he continues to work on the estate (taking very little pay) until the mortgage is paid off.
Vanya’s mother and the rest of the family support the Professor’s work by editing his notes, undertaking translations etc.
He takes no part in managing or looking after the affairs of the estate either before or after he returns to live on it, leaving all this to his daughter, Sonya (who has inherited the estate on her mother’s death) and his brother-in-law (Vanya, Sonya’s uncle);
He does not care how the family lives as long as they provide him with a regular income, which allows him to continue his sheltered, metropolitan life as an academic.
His second wife is an educated young woman who marries him for love, but he shows no sign of caring about her or how she spends her time.
He is happy to inconvenience others such as Dr. Astrov, by sending for him when he feels ill, then not seeing him, in spite of the distance the doctor has to travel to get to the Serebryakov estate.
The other two key characters are the unusual (vegetarian, tree planting, prescient) doctor, Astrov and Vanya himself, who early in the play indicates that the scales have fallen from his eyes regarding the Professor and his work (worthless). A third male character (Telegin) is a male counterpoint to Marina (the family’s old nanny).
The role of the four women characters appears to be that of illustrating particular traits. Responses to these keep the play moving:
Goodness and responsibility (Sonya);
Boredom (and beauty) (Yelena);
Sense and order (Marina);
Blind, hero worship (Marina Voynitska)
Things come to a head, when the Professor calls a family meeting to tell them that the estate is not providing him with enough funds to meet his future requirements. He expresses his desire to sell it and invest the proceeds so that he can return to dwell in the city. The rest of the family don’t play a part in his future plans and he doesn’t seem to care that this will make them homeless.
Vanya, driven mad by this announcement, disappears briefly and returns with a revolver. He then attempts to shoot Serebryakov, but misses.
The final act deals with the fallout from this and the resolution of a number of plot strands such as the relationship between Sonya, Astrov and Yelena.
The play ends with the departure of Serebryakov and Yelena from the estate and a return to ‘normality’ for the remaining characters.
The Ian Rickson directed production does not follow the play’s initial stage setting directions, but is beautifully atmospheric, replacing the “outside tea table set” with a sort of vast decayed conservatory, which is provides a flexible backdrop which requires no real changes except lighting. The text has been updated, but nothing is lost by this (I own two different translations and there must be more).
Casting is pitch perfect with Richard Armitage as the (formerly?) handsome Astrov and Toby Jones taking the role of Vanya. Roger Allam does sterling work as Serebryakov. Actually, the whole cast are superb and it would be interesting to see what things would look like if they swapped roles.
Block out a couple of hours over the Festive period and enjoy a masterpiece.
In amongst the sailing boats, skeletons, swords and other sea faring ephemera, that form the current exhibitions at the National Maritime Museum (NMMC), are three or four small, easily overlooked boards which pose some very interesting questions about how we view the world and the academic processes that document and display the animals, plants and objects within it.
How we name things tends to influence how we think about them subsequently.
Therefore, it’s important that we trust the people who name things and the ways and means by which they come to their conclusions.
Consequently, it’s important that museums and scientists are true to processes of academic rigour and that facts are checked and re-checked before opinion is delivered. By this means, such institutions acquire trusted status. Following on from this, when museums then take exhibits and put them on public display, the same objectivity needs to be applied.
For the NMMC, this is interesting, as its current blockbuster exhibition, Monsters of the Deep, includes a big section on Cryptozoology, a pseudo-science which seeks to use documented historical folklore as evidence for the existence of cryptids such as the Loch Ness monster.
In fairness to the NMMC, this part of the exhibition sits next to a ‘counterbalancing’ area devoted to the means of scientific research. I’m sure kids loved the thought of cryptids on the loose in the ocean, but does the inclusion and prominence given to Cryptozoology in this exhibition give it a legitimacy over and above the accepted methods of scientific research backed by direct observation and data recording?
If you were curating objects for a museum, what would you choose and how would you make decisions about what to include? Ultimately, wherever there is choice, there is the risk of bias or lack of objectivity.
Add to this, other issues respecting collections which contain objects from other parts of the world and the ethics of retaining or displaying these items.
Clearly, collecting, curating and exhibiting is a minefield.
The NMMC responds to these issues by concluding that museums are not neutral spaces and that their role is to provoke thought and debate.
Today we spent an instructive afternoon in Falmouth’s maritime museum. Long a favourite with us, the museum is home to the quirky, odd and sometimes downright potty, things to do with seafaring matters.
Standing exhibitions take care of things like the pilchard fishing industry, shipping agents in Falmouth and Captain John Bull’s role in seeing off the dastardly Frenchies, but there’s always one big new exhibition every few months.
Currently, this is Monsters of the Deep, which assembles a wide collection of ancient and modern objects in its quest to tell the story of man’s developing understanding of the deep areas of the ocean.
This necessarily takes in creatures that definitely didn’t live there (mermaids), creatures that do live there (Gulper eels) and creatures that might live there.
The Victorian’s were the first to really try and get a good grip on the science with the Royal Navy’s 1872 Challenger expedition. This expedition set out to look systematically at a wide variety of issues connected with sea life and the oceans. Data about ocean temperatures, geology, depths, animal species and much more was collected from around the globe and the results of this ambitious scientific endeavour data became the foundation of modern oceanography.
A reasonable portion of the exhibition is given over to cryptozoology and the work of Bernard Heuvelmans. With 95% of the deep ocean areas unexplored, its anybody’s guess what’s down there, but whether Heuvelmans was working on the right lines or not time will tell.
Use(less)/ful fact of the day
Some squid varieties grow up to 20m long and have eyes that are 11 inches across.
Top tip of the day
Don’t poke about in the darker regions of the Mariana Trench.
Verdict?
Worth a look. You’re guaranteed to learn something (unless you just head to the cafe or the gift shop).
Dystonia Girl 